Co-Dependencies: On Healing, Remembering, Breathing & Writing Trauma

4-Week Online Workshop starting July 12th, 2020

“What really exists is not things made but things in the making.” –William James

“How other kinds of beings see us matters. That other kinds of beings see us changes things.” –Eduardo Kohn

On han: “A feeling of unresolved resentment against injustices suffered, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against one, a feeling of acute pain in one’s guts and bowels, making the whole body writhe and squirm, and an obstinate urge to take revenge and to right the wrong—all these combined.” –Suh Nam-dong

How are the frames of reference and relationships between and of living beings activated? That is, how do different bodies and worlds articulate each other, or, how do we learn to be affected? How do we reconcile personal experience with historical fact? How do we reconcile history with memory? How do we reconcile truths with other truths? How does writing open up space while processing trauma or grief?

This four-week online workshop will begin with the unique emotional identity and Korean concept of han and its relationship to concepts of inherited trauma, looking closely at the relationship of cultural history & identity and aesthetics & narrative and exploring how the presence of unresolved corporeal history and the impossibility of articulation or expression leads to new encounters in language and narrative.

Through this generative and healing-focused workshop, we will use writing prompts, guided meditations, intuition exercises, personal medicine work, shamanic practices, divination, mapping, unbinding wounds & trauma, communing with plant and animal beings, and ceremony to explore the articulation of experience and trauma (lived and inherited). We will explore texts from all genres and work directly on developing a personal healing and writing practice while exploring lived/embodied experience, the body as both a compromised site and as a site for resistance, and connections to thinking about healing from other lineages, including plant & animal medicine, Buddhism, and different lineages of shamanism.

Workshop Structure:

In order to accommodate both synchronous and asynchronous modes, the majority of the work will be asynchronous and can be self-paced for each week (ie. readings, writing prompts, exercises, discussions). There will be 4 synchronous meetings (via Zoom). The 4 sessions will be: 11AM-12:30 PM PST – Mondays 7/13, 7/20, 7/27, 8/3). Though attendance at these meetings is highly encouraged, it is not mandatory. All meetings will be recorded and posted the next day, for those who are unable to make part or all of the meeting times, with guided instructions on any activities/exercises covered during the meetings to be posted as well. As well, all participants will have the opportunity to have two 1-on-1 conferences with Janice during the 4-week period.

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Limited sliding scale registrations ($150-$300) for BIPOC available. Please email Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com for more info.

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Janice Lee is a Korean-American writer, editor, publisher, and shamanic healer. She is the author of 7 books of fiction, creative nonfiction & poetry: KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011), Damnation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Reconsolidation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2015), The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016), Imagine a Death (The Operating System, 2021), and Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022). She writes about interspecies communication, plants & personhood, the filmic long take, slowness, the apocalypse, architectural spaces, inherited trauma, and the concept of han in Korean culture, and asks the question, how do we hold space open while maintaining intimacy? She combines shamanic and energetic healing with plant & animal medicine and teaches workshops on inherited trauma, healing, and writing. She is Founder & Executive Editor of Entropy, Co-Publisher at Civil Coping Mechanisms, Contributing Editor at Fanzine, and Co-Founder of The Accomplices LLC. She currently lives in Portland, OR where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University. She can be found online at http://janicel.com